The Popsicle-Stick Bridge

To some (newcomers, of course), it's been the Popsicle Stick Bridge forever, so named for a popsicle-stick factory which operated on the hillside west of the bridge.  

To me and my brothers, the structure represents a slice from childhood when we called it the Sand Creek Bridge. 

For my mother, the area represented a welcome break from us kids and a place about a mile from our farm where she knew she could always find us on any given summer morning after we left the house with our bikes and fishing poles. 

I visited the place yesterday after coming to town to pick up some frosting and ice cream to go with the birthday cake I'd baked from scratch. 

By the way, that was the first cake from scratch for me in about 25 years.  And, it turned out pretty well, especially with the pecan-coconut frosting purchased from Super 1. 

Anyway, for my trip to town, I bundled up in a winter coat, thanks to a bitter breeze blowing out here in Selle.  

By the time I reached the spot on HWY 95 where we can look over and see the now complete bike path which goes over Popsicle Stick Bridge, I decided the frosting and ice cream could wait.  

Most clouds had cleared, the sun had come out, I had my camera and it would be neat to visit one of my old haunts. 

I turned off the highway, went past Super 1, drove north on Boyer and then turned right near the old Racicot place.  

While driving down that road, I thought back on a summer evening close to 60 years ago when we kids and dogs were riding in the back of Harold's truck. Suddenly our Springer Spaniel-mix mutt named Duffy walked off the truck bed barking at some dog we'd just passed.

Duffy's barks immediately changed to whimpers as he hit the road pretty hard.  We had never given Duffy much credit for brilliance, especially after watching him walk under electric fences with tail wagging on one side and a loud yelp coming from his mouth on the other.  

Duffy did the fence torture more than once, but from that point on, we kinda watched him more closely if he rode with us in the back of the truck.  

The road goes straight with a housing development on one side and the old experiment farm on the other. Then, it curves on a downhill incline leading to the bridge.  

A turn-around spot, also used as a parking area in the old days, is still there.  In our youth, that turnaround spot served as a place to throw our bikes and the source for some of our roll-yer-owns, which we'd attempt to smoke in between fishing sessions.

After all, we'd hang out at the bridge for hours, and we sometimes needed a diversion, so we'd take leaves off the trees and roll them in whatever paper we could scrounge up from litter left by others.  

Not exactly germ-free, I'm sure, but we, as kids weren't exactly sanitary wonders with our stinky, dirty feet and soiled fingernails and arms chronically stained with dirt from our usual outdoor activities. 

I thought about those cigarettes yesterday and also thought about my often miserable fishing sessions and how they usually lasted for significantly shorter times than my brothers'.

Mike and Kevin had no problems keeping their hooks and line.  A good span of fishing for my stick pole, hook and line might last ten minutes before the line got caught on some bush far out of my reach. 

If the hook didn't get caught on a limb, the line had the magic touch of tangling up almost instantly.  So, my fishing sessions required patience and dexterity.  Since I lacked both, my equipment for hooking a trout, peno or sucker was rendered useless within minutes. 

So, I found other things to do while my brothers fished to their hearts' content and we kept our mother happy by hanging out somewhere else beside the house every summer day. 

The Popsicle Stick Bridge looks very different from its appearance during our youth.  If I recall correctly, the side boards were painted yellow and underneath were treated pilings, poles or whatever they used to keep the bridge standing over the untroubled water of Sand Creek.  

The area had a lot more bushes too----talented bushes that could catch Marianne's hook on the first try. 

Yesterday I parked partway down the hill to the bridge, stopped to take a photo of the LOVEly graffiti beneath the structure and then walked across and up the other side on the paved bike path which leads to an area where--back in the day--we could watch cars and trucks come down from the north and make a sharp turn on the roadway under a trestle. 

All of that area had a lot of foliage at the time, but construction has cleared the trees, bushes and shrubs which used to be interrupted only by an often squishy walking trail above the shoreline. 

I was thinking while walking the paved bike path that some beautification projects along either side might be nice. 

My walk toward town ended with a turnaround at a bench near the junction of HWY 95 and HWY 200. On my way back, I heard a noise behind me, turned around and saw a gentleman on a fat tire bike.  He had worked with Bill up at Schweitzer, so we swapped a few stories and then went on our way. 

It was nice to visit the Popsicle Stick aka Sand Creek Bridge at a time when it's relatively quiet place and not at its prettiest.  When the lake level comes up, the creek will fill up, and once more Sandpoint will have its jewel.  

Regardless of what it looks like, that place will always represent a precious gem in my memory.

Happy Friday.